Silver halide photographic light-sensitive materials are now used in large quantities and have gotten into many aspects of daily life in various forms, because of their high sensitivity, excellent gradation, sharpness and graininess, as well as their adaptability for mass-processing. For example, post cards printed from private photographs have come to be used as New Year's cards.
In photoprinting, there have been mainly used baryta paper and polyethylene-coated paper. Particularly, polyethylene-coated paper has been used in a large quantity, because it prevents processing chemicals from permeating into the support and thereby allows rapid processing and rapid drying. Various patterns can be formed on the surface of such polyethylene-coated paper by contacting a cooling roller engraved with various patterns with paper coated with molten polyethylene, in the course of cooling and solidification of the molten polyethylene. One typical example of such embossed surfaces is "silk surface" in which patterns of specific forms are regularly arranged (the kind of such embossing is hereinafter referred to as surface texture). In these patterned surface qualities, gloss is properly lowered as compared with an unembossed so-called glossy surface. Such an embossed surface has advantages of reflecting no light-source when viewed and leaving no finger marks when touched. On the other hand, it has disadvantages of giving an unnatural feeling when touched and causing an excessively hard gradation and a difficulty in looking details when viewed, on account of its distinctive irregularities. Accordingly, correction of such defects has been demanded.
Japanese Pat. Exam. Pub. No. 53941/1982 describes that a desirable surface gloss can be obtained with a photographic polyolefine-coated paper having an embossed surface containing 20 to 35 irregularities having a vertical difference of 5 to 20 .mu.m and arranged at intervals of 3 mm. It further discloses that a vertical difference less than 5 .mu.m makes it difficult to provide a desirable gloss, that a vertical difference more than 20 .mu.m is not favorable because it blurs images, that when the number of irregularities with a vertical difference of 5 to 20 .mu.m is less than 20, the gloss becomes too high, and that when the number is more than 35, the gloss is lowered so excessively as to give too much matting, causing undesirable results.
Japanese Pat. O.P.I. Pub. No. 280142/1990 describes that the unevenness in color and density can be minimized when a color photographic light-sensitive material having cyclic irreguralities in number of 4 to 20 per millimeter on the surface of support is processed under conditions to give a uniform color development.